Zionism

How shall we remember Christopher Hitchens? For his short-fused, slashing style? No one was more accomplished than he at firing rhetorical salvos at real or imaginary enemies. “Cry for Guatemala, with a corpse in every gate, if I had a rocket launcher, I would retaliate.” Whether or not Hitchens knew the lyrics of that Bruce Cockburn song, he agreed with them - more, I suspect, than Cockburn their author did. In the words of an ideology he never entirely relinquished, for Hitchens, “fascism means war” – which cuts both ways. It meant that Hitchens was anything but a pacifist.

Atheists come in all flavors. My favorite Protestant atheist - living, not yet in Dante’s First Circle - is Christopher Hitchens. The greatest Protestant atheist of all time is Nietzsche; people will be reading him long after Hitch is forgotten. To be sure, the best and brightest atheists are, as a rule, Jewish. It comes, I suppose, with being part of the Chosen People. I’m thinking of Freud, Marx, and an almost endless parade of lesser luminaries, from Ayn Rand to Steven Pinker. Catholic atheists are also excellent: Kolakowski and Eagleton come to mind. Do Eastern Orthodox make good atheists? Not that I know of. Stalin of course does not qualify.

Hitch has written a delightful piece in praise of the King James Version of the Bible for Vanity Fair (HT: Justin Knapp). A few remarks.

Fish’s approach to the rather ho-hum atheism of the three is helpful on several counts. For earlier summaries and discussion, go here and here. Before touching on Fish’s chief points in the third and final installment of his review, it is worth reiterating that atheism, properly understood, is a tonic of true faith. There is nothing to be afraid of, or if there is, we ought to be very afraid of many passages in the Bible, which question, doubt, and object to sins of omission and commission on God’s part with noticeable vehemence.

In his latest (June 17,
2007), Fish once again punches holes in the reasoning of Dawkins, Harris, and
Hitchens. The three turn out to be believers, caught in a web of belief,
argument, and working hypotheses, as we all are. Dawkins and Harris believe in
such things as the ability of natural selection to produce altruism, including,
one assumes, the capacity of one person to lay down her life for another. I
have no brief against the natural selection hypothesis. It is nevertheless
counter-intuitive in relation to certain sets of data. Which reminds me of the
God-hypothesis.

The three claim to reason not at all like the believers they choose to
skewer. How wrong they are.

The piece includes a quote from and link to Francis Collins, a scientist
of the same caliber as Dawkins. Collins, however, happens to be a Christian. He’s
not afraid to talk about it in the public square. I am thankful for him.

If you want to read Fish and do not have a subscription to the New York Times, a free trial subscription
will get you in.

Basically, he takes all three to the cleaners with wit and sparkle. As Fish says, “the objections Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens make to religious thinking are themselves part of religious thinking; rather than being swept under the rug of a seamless discourse, they are the very motor of that discourse, impelling the conflicted questioning of theologians and poets (not to mention the Jesus who cried, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and every verse of the Book of Job).”

Thinking about canon we are. The canon includes and embraces wails of doubt and despair that make the atheism of the above three seem tame. The psalms of lament, one of which Jesus appropriates in his darkest hour (Ps 22). In the darkness of despair, the psalmists blame God and no other for an unjust fate. The book of Lamentations, with its stark descriptions of exile, rape, cannibalism, and devastation, the author of which is said to be God. The protests of Jeremiah, who saw himself as a victim of sexual abuse, with God as the abuser, and he tells Him so (Jer 20:7-8). The defamation of God’s character by the innocent sufferer of the book of Job: see my introduction for an unwhitewashed overview of the whole. The searing skepticism of Qohelet, who saw no justice in the world.

Atheists, that is, those who passionately doubt God, are servants of God, as far as I’m concerned. They knock believers out of their complacency. In a paradoxical way, they are believers.

Faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin. If strong enough and sincere, doubt leads to faith, as it did for Thomas (John 20:24-28). And get this: if strong enough and sincere, faith leads to doubt before doubt leads back to faith again. We call this a circolo virtuoso in Italian. The opposite of a vicious circle.

The absence of faith is not doubt. It is saying, “God doesn’t care,” therefore, “I don’t either.” The non-caring folk: these, and these only, are the enemies of God in this world.

So how well do are our three atheists perform their service? Not very well, according to Fish. The three deal in straw men rather than the real thing. Fish remarks:

“I know of no religious framework that offers such a complacent picture of the life of faith, a life that is always presented as a minefield of the difficulties, obstacles and temptations that must be negotiated by a limited creature in his or her efforts to become aligned (and allied) with the Infinite. St Paul’s lament can stand in for many: “The good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, I do…. Who shall deliver me?” (Romans 7:19, 24). The anguish of this question and the incredibly nuanced and elegant writings of those who have tried to answer it are what the three atheists miss; and it is by missing so much that they are able to produce such a jolly debunking of a way of thinking they do not begin to understand.”

The most lucid presentation of atheism was penned, not by coincidence, by a believer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, who wrote The Brothers Karamazov. The chapter entitled “The Grand Inquisitor” is one of the great masterpieces of western literature. It is also Dostoevsky’s indictment of tradition’s perversion of the Gospel. This too, is thinking about canon.

If one makes a distinction between Tradition with a capital “t,” and the abuses of it by the church, which, if recurrent and systematic, are termed tradition with a small “t,” it is still possible to define all of Tradition as infallible. I for one find the distinction disingenuous, unless the person who makes it is willing to list ten abuses past and present the tradition of the religious formation he belongs to is guilty of.

By the way, Stanley Fish is just warming up in his review of the three. If you want to read the column he wrote today and the ones coming up for free, you can sign up for a 14 day free trial of premium content on the newspaper’s site.

Believing is KnowingComments on things like prophecy, predestination, and reward and punishment from an orthodox Jewish perspective, by David Guttmann

Ben Byerly's Blogthoughts on the Bible, Africa, Kenya, aid, and social justice, by Ben Byerly, a PhD candidate at Africa International University (AIU), in Nairobi, Kenya working on “The Hopes of Israel and the Ends of Acts” (Luke’s narrative defense of Paul to Diaspora Judeans in Acts 16-20)

C. OrthodoxyChristian, Contemporary, Conscientious… or Just Confused, by Ken Brown, a very thoughtful blog (archive). Ken is currently a Dr. Theol. student at Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, part of The Sofja-Kovalevskaja Research Group studying early Jewish Monotheism. His dissertation will focus on the presentation of God in Job.

Catholic Biblesa thoughtful blog about Bible translations by Timothy, who has a degree in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome (Angelicum) and teaches theology in a Catholic high school in Michigan

Chrisendomirreverent blog with a focus on the New Testament, by Chris Tilling, New Testament Tutor for St Mellitus College and St Paul's Theological Centre, London

Claude Mariottinia perspective on the Old Testament and current events by a professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Chicagoland, Illinois

Codex: Biblical Studies Blogspotby Tyler Williams, a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and cognate literature, now Assistant Professor of Theology at The King's University College in Edmonton, Alberta (archive)

Colours of Scripturereflections on theology, philosophy, and literature, by Benjamin Smith, afflicted with scriptural synaesthesia, and located in London, England

ComplegalitarianA team blog that discusses right ways and wrong ways Scripture might help in the social construction of gender (old archive only; more recent archive, unfortunately, no longer publicly available)

Connected Christianitya place to explore what it might be like if Christians finally got the head, heart, and hands of their faith re-connected (archive)

Conversational TheologySmart and delightful comment by Ros Clarke, a Ph.D. student at the University of the Highlands and Islands, at the (virtual) Highland Theological College (archive)

Daily HebrewFor students of biblical Hebrew and the ancient Near East, by Chip Hardy, a doctoral student at the University of Chicago

Daniel O. McClellana fine blog by the same, who is pursuing a master of arts degree in biblical studies at Trinity Western University just outside of Vancouver, BC.

Davar AkherLooking for alternative explanations: comments on things Jewish and beyond, by Simon Holloway, a PhD student in Classical Hebrew and Biblical Studies at The University of Sydney, Australia

Evedyahuexcellent comment by Cristian Rata, Lecturer in Old Testament of Torch Trinity Graduate School of Theology, Seoul, Korea

Exegetica Digitadiscussion of Logos high-end syntax and discourse tools – running searches, providing the downloads (search files) and talking about what can be done and why it might matter for exegesis, by Mike Heiser

Law, Prophets, and Writingsthoughtful blogging by William R. (Rusty) Osborne, Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies as College of the Ozarks and managing editor for Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament

Lingamishdelightful fare by David Ker, Bible translator, who also lingalilngas.

old testament passionGreat stuff from Anthony Loke, a Methodist pastor and Old Testament lecturer in the Seminari Theoloji, Malaysia

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha BlogA weblog created for a course on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, by James Davila (archive)

On the Main LineMississippi Fred MacDowell's musings on Hebraica and Judaica. With a name like that you can't go wrong.

p.ost an evangelical theology for the age to comeseeking to retell the biblical story in the difficult transition from the centre to the margins following the collapse of Western Christendom, by Andrew Perriman, independent New Testament scholar, currently located in Dubai

PaleoJudaicaby James Davila, professor of Early Jewish Studies at the University of St. Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland. Judaism and the Bible in the news; tidbits about ancient Judaism and its context

Serving the Wordincisive comment on the Hebrew Bible and related ancient matters, with special attention to problems of philology and linguistic anthropology, by Seth L. Sanders, Assistant Professor in the Religion Department of Trinity College, Hartford, CT

Targumanon biblical and rabbinic literature, Christian theology, gadgetry, photography, and the odd comic, by Christian Brady, associate professor of ancient Hebrew and Jewish literature and dean of the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State

The Biblia Hebraica Bloga blog about Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the history of the Ancient Near East and the classical world, Syro-Palestinian archaeology, early Judaism, early Christianity, New Testament interpretation, English Bible translations, biblical theology, religion and culture, philosophy, science fiction, and anything else relevant to the study of the Bible, by Douglas Magnum, PhD candidate, University of the Free State, South Africa

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